# @nasaartemis on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DCFFBkdOpz9
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/24655653-nasaartemis-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/a3cb0c2298.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-11-07T17:57:35.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** NASA Artemis (@nasaartemis) — https://gondola.cc/nasaartemis

## Caption

The first rover to roll on Mars 🥐⁣
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NASA’s Mars Pathfinder launched Dec. 4, 1996 and landed on Mars’ Ares Vallis on July 4, 1997. The spacecraft successfully delivered an instrumented lander and the Sojourner rover — the first-ever robotic rover to land and operate on the Martian surface. Pathfinder also returned a then-unprecedented amount of data and outlived its primary design life.⁣
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Pathfinder used an innovative method of directly entering the Martian atmosphere, assisted by a parachute to slow its descent through the thin Martian atmosphere and a giant system of airbags to cushion the impact. It was the first time this airbag technique had been used. At a speed of 31 mph (14 meters per second) and measuring 19 feet (5.8 meters) in diameter, Pathfinder bounced like a giant beach ball about 15 times, as high as 50 feet (15 meters), before coming to rest 2-1/2 minutes later about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) from the point of initial impact.⁣
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Image description: The Sojourner Rover deploys the proton x-ray spectrometer onto a rock named “Moe” within the rock garden in this color-enhanced mosaic taken by the imager on the Mars Pathfinder lander (foreground).⁣
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Credit: NASA⁣
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#TBT #Mars #NASAHistory #MarsPathfinder #Pathfinder #MarsRover #Martian #OnARoll

## Stats

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## Tags

onaroll, marsrover, tbt, pathfinder, mars, marspathfinder, nasahistory, martian

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